SLA Resin Handling Guide for 3D Printing - 11 Tips for Containing the Mess and Keeping Things Safe

Hi I'm Michael I love my 3d printer but dealing with the uncured resin can be a pain. and if you're not careful it can get all over everything. So today I'm going to share my resin management guide. 11 tips for handling and managing resin. The problem with resin printers is... the resin. You shouldn't get it on your skin the fumes can be problematic and you don't want to accidentally confuse it your coffee creamer. It's a pain. The trade-off though is the quality and in my opinion, it's worth it. But if you're not careful... well, even if you are careful, the resin can get on things you don't want it to get on, So the answer is actually sort of simple. You just need to have some basic operating procedures and then follow them. Here is my resin management guide 11 things you can do to keep things safe and help contain the mess. Let's start off with a couple of basics. My first tip is that I have a cheap plastic tablecloth on my table. It's probably a three dollar tablecloth. This is to protect the table and to help contain an accidental mess. If I have a spill worst case I could just take the tablecloth off take it out into the Sun for the resin to cure and then dispose of it. I bought these really cheap rubber mats they were $15 for three. And there's a link to all of this stuff in the description. But these have a little lip so the liquid stays on the mat. I have one here in the front of the printer so that when I pull out the build plate I can set it here to remove the part. I also have this one on the side for tools. If I set down anything that's wet with resin it goes on the mat. Not the tablecloth. The goal is to keep resin off the tablecloth and keep it on the mat. To clean these I spray a little IPA on it and wipe it with a paper towel. The third tip is just to keep your printer station organized. Let me show you how I have mine set up. I do keep an open trash can. what I need to toss something I don't want to have to open a lid I might have wet gloves on oh and use a bag for containment and easy cleanup there are a lot of Expendables here I have a roll of paper towels handy I also keep a terry cloth towel here as well I consider this to be disposable so when it gets too dirty I'll just toss it but usually I am only using it to wipe off a glove that's wet with alcohol I've got some good metal funnels and of course an ample supply of isopropyl alcohol and I know there are some other options for cleaning but at the moment I still prefer IPA but even if you're using mean green or whatever I would still keep a supply of IPA mixes some spray bottles I think these were $7 for the 2-pack and they have IPA in them I also have some Ziploc jars and glass jars for storing and recycling IPA smaller parts I'll wash right in these jars a small paintbrush in a toothbrush I'll tell you what those are for later my allen wrench for leveling the build plate and of course my gloves and make sure you don't go for the latex gloves because they don't protect you well enough from the uncured resin and other chemicals instead you need to go for knit night nitrile knits rile nitrile anyway use that kind and these are another expendable item don't be afraid to reapply gloves often I go through these pretty quickly next is my mask and glasses feel free to comment that my mask isn't good enough discuss this controversial topic in the comments and then I have various tips for cleaning which brings me to tip number four I have a tub dedicated for just cleaning and storing the built plate and I think this is important um often I'll just keep the build plate in here in between prints and I love these tubs I got them on sale at Joanne's for probably only three or four dollars each and I got to say don't use something like a disposable foil or roasting pan this is still waiting to happen get some real tubs here's why I picked this particular tub for one it's large enough to fit the build plate and close the lid with it in there now the bottom of it is square and flat they stack really well and they have a lid that snaps on tight and helps prevent evaporation and they have a handle for moving them around easily although I would still support it from the bottom to make sure it can handle the weight I have other tubs of IPA for cleaning the parts two of them I have one dirty one and one clean one and keep watching because later I'm going to show you how I clean the IPA so I can reuse it tip number five is basic safety precautions gloves glasses and ventilation here's my tip about safety precautions have a reasonable respect for the dangers and take easy and appropriate actions and what I mean by that is don't go overboard but don't completely ignore it because if you make the safety step too difficult you'll start skipping it okay we already talked about gloves so yeah of course you should avoid getting uncured resin on your bare hands but guess what it's gonna happen a part will poke through a glove or a splash will happen you'll accidentally grab the scraper you just need to have a plan of what you're gonna do when that happens Nyx's safety glasses splashes like I said are going to happen and you really don't want I PA or uncured resin ending up in your eye on a side note here I suggest also wearing them when removing supports we found this out the hard way the little support pieces can shoot all over the place and really early on a shard ended up in somebody's eye it was fine and fell right out but now we wear protective glasses a lot and then ventilation in my book it's important because it helps prevent irritation to the eyes nasal cavities lungs etc the fumes really do get to me a lot my next video is about this event system so keep an eye out for that okay the next two tips are more like concepts or ways of thinking about things that I think will help contain the mess but before I get to that do me a quick favor click the thumbs up icon and turn it blue this will really help me out okay moving on number six is the concept of contaminated items and non contaminated items like I said before when we're moving parts you get resin all over both gloves it's unavoidable and then I don't want to touch something else with my wet glove and spread the resin to other items because then theoretically those items would become contaminated and I'd need a glove on anytime I touch those things or I'd have to clean them up which is a pain so I have pre decided what items in my print station are going to be contaminated items and what items I don't want resin to ever get on once I have this list then I just never touch those items with a wet glove so what's on the list well for me it's just about everything for example I don't want liquid resin on the printer doors the outside of the printer on the lids to my tubs on the resin containers the spray bottles or the box of gloves in fact I think resin or alcohol on this red Plexiglas in the door we'll run it I've heard that it can make it crack and I want my printer to stay nice I don't even want resin on the outside of my back or the underside of it or any of the thumbscrews and I don't want it on the LCD so almost everything is on my don't contaminate list the only things that are on my contaminated list are the build plate the metal scraper the funnel and maybe the toothbrush and of course the mats the terry cloth towel I don't consider to be contaminated but I guess it depends on what you wipe on it the next concept is the idea of high risk and low risk activities now what I mean by risk is risk of getting resin on your gloves I'll start with high risk high risk activities I wear two gloves but pretty much the only high risk activity is removing the build plate after printing and then removing the parts from the build plate that's pretty much it and when I'm done with the high risk activities I remove and toss the gloves even if I'm gonna do something else that's a lower risk next for low risk activities I usually have one glove on and one off dexterity is easier for me without the gloves but now I have a hand that can touch non-contaminated things the things I don't want to contaminate and I have a hand that can touch lightly contaminated items and since I'm right-handed the right hand is the one with the glove now you can wear two gloves if it makes you more comfortable but I think not having a glove on one hand helps me remember that hand can only touch non-contaminated things and when I'm doing something low-risk I still try to keep resin from getting on the glove let's say I'm removing the lid to the resin I'll use a paper towel to pop off the seal and still try to minimize resin getting on my glove other low-risk activities are going to be things like pouring resin into the VAT pouring resin out of the VAT back into the bottle cleaning parts and cleaning the build plate and see even when clean parts there is a fair amount of resin getting on the glove during that activity but I still keep one hand resin free for touching things like the IPA bottle or anything that's on my non-contaminated list when a print is ready to be removed I put on my eyewear mask and gloves but here's the tip while my gloves are still clean I handle anything that I need to that's on that non-contaminated list and get it all prepped and ready I open the printer doors take the lids off the tubs and loosen the thumb screws because once I've removed the build plate my gloves are extremely wet with resin and if you start touching things you're gonna get resin all over everything so with contaminated gloves I don't touch the tub lids or open and close the printer door instead prepare that stuff before removing the part here's how it goes I let the part drip into the bat first then move it over to the mat and tilt it different ways to drain out all the resin the dripping resin is all captured on the mat then I do the very messy process of removing the parts this is always messy but I try to contain it the scraper is contaminated so I can use it with a wet glove as the parts are freed I set them in the tub of IPA which already has an open lid once that messy part is over I still do one more thing before tossing the gloves remember how I have a dedicated tub for the build plate and that I opened it before getting my gloves dirty well with my wet gloves I've now got resin on top of the build plate also so you don't want to install it back in the printer instead set it in the top of IPA slosh it around and let it sit there then I take off my gloves here's a side tip don't set the build plate in the Sun I had heard that if something gets resin on it you can just cure it in the Sun and then it's easier to clean up well I tried that with a build plate after my first print and it was a pain to clean up as expected it cured but there had been resin all over it some of it was diluted with IPA which still cures I had to scrape and scrape it and it took a while to get it all off and you don't want cured resin on your build plate ok now later when I'm ready to print again I pull the build plate out and I'll clean it one more time with the toothbrush to make sure it's free of resin I'll spray or pour a little more IPA on it to get it really clean then set it on paper towels to dry and wipe it down you don't want any leftover IPA in those holes when it enters the resin so make sure that all the IPA has evaporated and that it's dry before reinstalling it in the printer I prefer my VAT to be very clean I don't want any resin on the outside edge of the VAT or the bottom of the fehb because then it would get on the LCD cure there and cause failures and your prints okay so in between prints I will wipe gently over the fit with the plastic scraper and what I'm doing here is I'm feeling to see if anything is sticking to the fab I'm also clearing any build-up I don't use anything on the fehb to help prevent sticking if you do that you might not want to do this step but since I don't before prynt I'll add resin stir it up and check the fat to completely clean it I first empty as much of the resin as possible back into a bottle I use a metal funnel with a built-in strainer these work great because they sit right in the bottle and you don't have to hold it a little sub tip on my printer at the frozen transform the VAT does have one corner that's made to be a pour spout I didn't notice it at first but using that corner really helps reduce drips so I get as much of the resin out as possible then I wipe that corner off with a paper towel and set it down on some clean paper towels not on a mat because that has resin on it and I don't want to get resin under the FET so next I'll pour a little IPA directly into the VAT and then I use the paintbrush to gently clean the fehb get in all the corners in the creases this makes very dirty IPA but that's okay I pour that cocktail out into a jar then repeat that one more time then I continue cleaning with a spray bottle wiping with a paper towel and repeat until it's spotless my final tip is on how to recycle and sort of purify that super dirty IPA I keep a lot of these plastic ziplock jars for dirty IPA I also have some glass jars these were from spaghetti sauce I set the jar out into the Sun to cure leave it out there for a couple hours then bring it back in to rest after a day or so the resin settles in the bottom and forms like a blob I've heard of people using coffee filters to strain the IPA but that wastes a lot through evaporation so I bought a non-porous strainer this tea strainer has a very fine mesh and it fits right on top of my ziplock container strain through this and you have some IPA that's pure enough for the next back cleaning I do try to avoid any of this blob getting into the strainer get as much of the IPA out as you can the blob of resin to dispose of it I pour it out onto an open container and then take it out into the Sun again the IPA evaporates and the resin cures then just toss the blob in the trash so that's it I hope there's been at least a couple of helpful ideas here I want to hear from you guys what are your tips for maintaining the mess how do you keep your printer station clean leave a comment and let us know my next video is going to be about the ventilation system that I made that includes a cheap fan to help circulate the air my video after that is probably going to be about why and resin printing we print at an angle I'll discuss overhangs and supports and do some experiments on just how much of an overhang you can get away with don't forget to hit like on this video and if you haven't subscribed yet do that now thanks for watching

Channel: Nerdtronic

Views: 121,811

Keywords: phrozen transform, chitubox, 3d printing, calibration, resin, resin 3d printing, phrozen 3d printer, phrozen 4k, formlabs, uncle jessie, prints too large, prints too small, elgoo, elgoo mars, phrozen, uncured resin, resin printer, calibration block, resin mess, fumes, resin safety, nerdtronic, resin management, resin handling, sla

Id: onVNnRjbm5g

Length: 15min 11sec (911 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 15 2020